"Can't we all just get along?” Like a mantra, that simple question is asked again and again, all over the world, as one cultural or ethnic battle follows another in deadly succession.

Naomi Horii and Marilyn Krysl, editors of the award-winning literary journal Many Mountains Moving, have found a way to answer that question in the affirmative, without being glib or simplistic.

Many Mountains Moving addresses difficult, provocative topics such as racism, homosexuality, poverty, abuse, and crime – issues that all cultures must confront but generally prefer to hide from view, like a family's shameful secrets. It investigates these issues through the lens of high quality poetry, fiction, essays, and art from a wide array of cultural and ethnic perspectives. Its roster of previous contributors reads like a Who's Who in ethnic literature: Robert Bly, Sherman Alexie, Lorna Dee Cervantes, Adrienne Rich, Ursula K. Le Guin, Luis Alberto Urrea, and Allen Ginsburg.

Its topics may be hot, but its methods are subtle. Many Mountains Moving simply invites readers into a truly multicultural exchange. Then, as only literature and art can do, it asks them to look out at the world through another's eyes. In that process, we see how it just might be possible for us all to get along.

"H.D. Lail is a freelance writer from Colorado and a frequent book reviewer forInscriptions Magazine.